My first SimRig build!

[DrRob]

Gents,

after playing on a wheelstand setup for quite some years, I decided to upgrade to a proper rig. I was always hesitant to litter the living room witha full blown rig, so made do with a GT Omega "Classic".

The whole journey started for me with a PS3, GranTurismo 5, a 100" front projection home theater setup and a Thrustmaster T500RS with TH8A. Later I switched to a PC with R3E and AC, modified the pedals with stiffer Mardo Media springs, upgraded to a TM Sparco 383mod, added a Nextion display and braced the wheelstand including Sofa hook-up.

Now playing mostly ACC and got a taste of what it is like with a proper rig and DD wheel which left me wanting.
I guess it is time for a radical change....and even got permission from the missus.

 

[Nicoboks]

Error

 

[Nicoboks]

is it me or your love for the g9 is growing ?
Your 3080 on the way should help nail it.

I think i m’sold by the way absolutly no distortion for what i can see which was my main fear

 

[DrRob]

is it me or your love for the g9 is growing ?
Your 3080 on the way should help nail it.

I think i m’sold by the way absolutly no distortion for what i can see which was my main fear

I'm loving the higher resolution compared to the HG90 for sure!
The G-Sync is now also flawless compared to the artifacts I had earlier.

Indeed the RTX3080 is on its way and will hopefully arrive before christmas!
I can crank up all the details I am missing out on at the moment.
Will be epic!

BTW I corrected my driving position a tad and could gain a bit in terms of FOV. I'm at 32 at the moment with 60vm viewing distance.
Still... the monitor could be slightly lower (1-2cm) and the steering wheel angled a bit steeper (3-5°)....but not sure I'm in for the hassle of changing the setup further....

[EDIT] If you're "german" about it, you can see one odd distortion I noticed with projection correction on 1.0 and with pixel peeping you will still see a very very slight distortion of round objects.

 

[Nicoboks]

I'm loving the higher resolution compared to the HG90 for sure!
The G-Sync is now also flawless compared to the artifacts I had earlier.

Indeed the RTX3080 is on its way and will hopefully arrive before christmas!
I can crank up all the details I am missing out on at the moment.
Will be epic!

BTW I corrected my driving position a tad and could gain a bit in terms of FOV. I'm at 32 at the moment with 60vm viewing distance.
Still... the monitor could be slightly lower (1-2cm) and the steering wheel angled a bit steeper (3-5°)....but not sure I'm in for the hassle of changing the setup further....

[EDIT] If you're "german" about it, you can see one odd distortion I noticed with projection correction on 1.0 and with pixel peeping you will still see a very very slight distortion of round objects.

fortunately i’m french, a couple of glass of good wine and i live with it

 

[DrRob]

Christmas came early today! Woohooo!

After about 3 weeks of wait the RTX3080 is finally with me. The original package had my name on it as it was reserved for me from the last batch (I missed out on apparently). Build week is stated on the sticker on the card as CW51. That was last week!


Anyway out with the old, in with the new. The new card is only slightly longer than my old GTX1070. Just short enough to not have contact with the preliminary build-in HDD. That one will be replaced by a NvMe M2 module early next year.


Tested the new beast with ACC of course. With the same settings as before the card helped to increase the FPS by 2-2.5x.

Then I removed the tweaked engine.ini and cranked up the details to Epic (and beyond). Good thing I didn't go for the cheaper RTX3070! The slower card wouldn't have cut it with the full resolution of the Samsung G9 and everything on max details.
I had to go down from epic to high on a few settings to stay above 50 FPS on the most demanding race setting: Spa, 49 AI, medium rain, night, at the start of the race.

ACC can look so glorious! It is amazing what I have missed out on so far...
Sure, this will not make me faster at all, but as I am in sim racing for the immersion this was surely a big step up!

 

[Nicoboks]

Christmas came early today! Woohooo!

After about 3 weeks of wait the RTX3080 is finally with me. The original package had my name on it as it was reserved for me from the last batch (I missed out on apparently). Build week is stated on the sticker on the card as CW51. That was last week!
View attachment 429431

Anyway out with the old, in with the new. The new card is only slightly longer than my old GTX1070. Just short enough to not have contact with the preliminary build-in HDD. That one will be replaced by a NvMe M2 module early next year.
View attachment 429432View attachment 429433View attachment 429434

Tested the new beast with ACC of course. With the same settings as before the card helped to increase the FPS by 2-2.5x.

Then I removed the tweaked engine.ini and cranked up the details to Epic (and beyond). Good thing I didn't go for the cheaper RTX3070! The slower card wouldn't have cut it with the full resolution of the Samsung G9 and everything on max details.
I had to go down from epic to high on a few settings to stay above 50 FPS on the most demanding race setting: Spa, 49 AI, medium rain, night, at the start of the race.

ACC can look so glorious! It is amazing what I have missed out on so far...
Sure, this will not make me faster at all, but as I am in sim racing for the immersion this was surely a big step up!

WoW good to hear ! A but disappointed i thougt 80/90 fps should be achievable !
Enjoy mate !

 

[DrRob]

WoW good to hear ! A but disappointed i thougt 80/90 fps should be achievable !
Enjoy mate !

Same here.... But nearly 4k at max detail takes a toll on the system for sure....

 

[Mr Latte]

Enjoyed going through the journey this thread has been up to here.
Quite a lot of cool toys.

 

[Mr Latte]

Someday you might open up that transducer you have to see if it has similar internals to the Aura Pro?

 

[DrRob]

Someday you might open up that transducer you have to see if it has similar internals to the Aura Pro?

It is the AuraSound AST-2B-4 Pro.
Is there a different Aura unit also called Pro?

I hope I do not have to open up that unit tbh.

 

[Mr Latte]

It is the AuraSound AST-2B-4 Pro.
Is there a different Aura unit also called Pro?

I hope I do not have to open up that unit tbh.

Apologies, I was getting mixed up, it was the other iBeam unit that you had at a time.
Silly me too in my confusion as, It cant be similar to the Aura models due to its shape.

The iBeam had specs very similar to some TST models and I was curious if you ever had a peek at it inside. Never seemed to be a transducer that many went with due to its cost and offering less in the low-end frequencies than a similarly priced large BK but like a TST unit it had more sonic abilities with music applications.

Was wondering if you used it on your sim rig and with RPM or other effects?

Whitepaper

 

[DrRob]

Apologies, I was getting mixed up, it was the other iBeam unit that you had at a time.
Silly me too in my confusion as, It cant be similar to the Aura models due to its shape.

The iBeam had specs very similar to some TST models and I was curious if you ever had a peek at it inside. Never seemed to be a transducer that many went with due to its cost and offering less in the low-end frequencies than a similarly priced large BK but like a TST unit it had more sonic abilities with music applications.

Was wondering if you used it on your sim rig and with RPM or other effects?

Whitepaper

No worries. I bought the IBeam way back in 2007 for my homecinema setup. It was the perfect alternative to the original BK, since you could mount the IBeam directly to the sofa itself (invisible). The BK had to be placed on specific platforms connected to the sofa feet (visible).
Additionally I found the IBeam to be more suited to support subwoofers also for music, like you said. The BK is maybe a bit more suited for higher amplitudes.

So far I have not tried to use the VT-200 with sim racing applications to be honest. It would be a hassle to remove the IBeam from the sofa and mount it to the sim rig. I'm too lazy .
What I can say is that I was quite impressed by the capabilities of the Aura Pro in terms of low end reach and response. But the Aura Pro seems to be less accurate and less suited for high volume levels. Of course this is not a 1:1 comparison.

[EDIT] Thank you for the whitepaper. Very interesting!

 

[DrRob]

A small update after a few weeks with the new RTX3080....

This puppy gets really hot under load. In ACC I limited to 70 FPS now to get some load off of the GPU. Additionally I installed another fan I had lying around as a spare. Not a supersilent, supereffective one, but good enough for the moment.


I also installed MSI Afterburner and fiddled a bit with undervolting. I reduced the maximum voltage from 1100 mV to 880 mV. In ACC I noticed no significant reduction in FPS even under heavy load (Spa, 49KI, night, rain). Maybe 5 FPS at most at the race start procedure, where the FPS drops below 70 FPS.
The reduction in temperature was about 5 - 10 °C, which is a lot if you want to prolomg the lifetime of your GPU.
BTW I also lower the desired maximum temperature from 82°C (standard) to 70°C.
That means that I have 60°C to 65°C now instead of 70°C to peak 75°C.

All the above measured added to a slightly louder noise profile of the computer on full load of course....
The GPU fans go up to 75% - 85% fan speed IIRC.


P.S.: The Samsung G9 developed a slight crackling noise a few minutes into operation from a cold start. Not worrying though. But to be fair I didn't notice that with the HG90.

 

[DrRob]

For those interested in my ACC graphics settings:

 

[Nicoboks]

finally pull the trigger on the New pc rtx 3080 and ryzen 5 5600 x
What s your cpu rob ?
You do not use hdr ?
Still on the fence for the screen
Lots of sales right now in France i can get a g9 around 1350 e and a c49 for 900 ish

 

[DrRob]

Hey Nico, I have an I7-9700K to have headroom for AI races. ACC is kind in need of at least 6 cores for >25AI races. I run discord, afterburner and other tools simultaneously, so 8 cores work just fine for me.
I have no experience with the AMDs to be honest. I know some are running them with ACC, I haven't heard any major complaints from them.

I do not use HDR. To my eyes it looks rather cartoonish and unrealistic. Preference I guess. Some like it.
Regarding the G9 I guess the main selling point is the G-sync (for me at least).
I have not seen the RG90 live. Not sure if picture quality is on par with the G9.
From my HG90 it is of course a big step up.

 

[chuuurles]

thanks for all the G9 info, you are helping me get setup

 

[Nicoboks]

Rob it s done finally choose the g9 for 1350 e sounds like a fair deal
New pc and screen at home saturday much sooner than expected
Thanks for all the advices, review and pics mate

 

[DrRob]

Rob it s done finally choose the g9 for 1350 e sounds like a fair deal
New pc and screen at home saturday much sooner than expected
Thanks for all the advices, review and pics mate

Well done! Pretty sure you can't wait!
I would be interested to read your feedback and impressions!

 

[Nicoboks]

Well done! Pretty sure you can't wait!
I would be interested to read your feedback and impressions!
[/QUOTE

Will definitly send pics and impressions here but don’t wanna hijack your thread